Haifa, Day 1
Sunday, 12 November 2017

We sail into Haifa City Harbor as the sun is rising and we have a fine, but distant, view of the Baha'i temple and gardens that stretch up the hillside over the water.  We opt for room service breakfast, which our Butler brings precisely on time, and we leave the ship at 8am sharp for this full-day, ten-hour tour (nothing if I were 20 years younger, but a bit stressing and stretching today).  It takes over two hours to reach Jerusalem from Haifa, amid terrible Sunday traffic and much highway construction.  We make a pit stop about 30 minutes outside of Jerusalem, at a roadside shop named for "Elvis," of all people.  There is a US $1.00 charge to use the restroom (good for whatever number of people are in your group).  They won't except my shekels from 1993--they are too old and out of circulation (I guess they go back into the scrapbook from which I removed them).

Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel (beating out both Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa), and out first view of the old city encircled by its original walls is from the Mount of Olives viewpoint.  Even in the hazy, cloudy distance, we have no trouble making out the domes and towers of the most famous monuments.  From the viewpoint, our bus takes us to the Jaffa Gate, where we begin our walking tour of the old city.  Almosty immediately we come to the "Westerm" or "Wailing" Wall, the most holy spot in the city for Jews, being the one remining wall of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans.  People of all faiths are welcome to visit and pray at the wall, but the visiting areas are strictly divided by gender (the ultra conservative religious sects are in charge of the holy sites in Israel).  You write a wish on a small piece of paper (available for free) and place it in a crack of the wall.  At the end of the day, the prayers are gather together by the authorities (who read them for terrorist threats, I suppose).


Because I am wearing a tallith and kippur (brought from home), I am immediately accosted by English-speaking natives who urge me to put on tfillin and pray with them.  I refuse their exhorations and escape from their grasp as quickly and politely as possible.

Outside Old City Walls

Prayers at the Western Wall

Our walking tour takes us over the rough stone pavements of the old Jewish Quarter, through the Via Doloroso (Stages of the Cross 6-12), a brief shopping stop in the old bazaar, culminating in a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the holiest site for Christians.  The present building complex is managed by three different Catholic sections (Roman, Eastern Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox), each jealouly guarding the sacred objects in their sections, and each telling their own versions of the story of Jesus.

The most well-known sections are Golgotha (site of the crucifixion), the Stone of Unction (where Christ's body was washed after being taken down from the cross), the Altar (covering the entrance to the cave in which Christ's body was stored), and the crypt (from which he rose from the dead).  All these places, originally outdoors and outside the city walls, are now covered by the enormous structure of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher--very crowded today.  (Oh, how we long for the leisurely and uncroweded 10 days we spent hefre in 1993).

Inside the Narrow Streets of the Jewish Quarter

(Via Doloroso)

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

After a buffet luinch at a hotel outside the old city walls, we take a short drive through the new city, passing the Knesset (parliament) and the Hebrew Museum.  There isn't any time for stops and we are soon on the road again for the three-hour drive back to the ship in Haifia, where we arrive at precisely 6pm, exaqc tly as the tour description predicts.  It has been a long and wearying day, but we have seen and experienced, if only briefly, some of the most important historic sites of Western culture.  Tomorrow we have an even longer day, with a tour to Masada and the Dead Sea.  Tonight, it's a quick dinner and early bedtime.



Lunch Hotel in Jerusalem